As The Ship Sinks, Relativity Media Leadership Bails On Employees

It was less than six hours ago when we reported that emails had been sent to all of Relativity Media’s 25 or so remaining employees informing them that their two weeks of Christmas vacation had been turned into a furlough without pay. Now word is emerging that after pulling that Grinch-worthy stunt, Chairman and CEO Ryan Kavanaugh and President Dana Brunetti are both bailing effective immediately.

Ex-CEO and Freelance Christmas Grinch, Ryan Kavanaugh

Some of Deadline’s sources have reported that Brunetti has been working for some time to get out from under contract binding him to the position and it seems that either happened – or the act of putting the staff on furlough was enough to trigger a get out of responsibility free card. While his employees will very likely be on the job hunt by the beginning of January, he’ll land on his feet since he’s been producing films all along, with his next being Fifty Shades Darker.

Ex-President and Assistant Grinch, Dana Brunetti

With both Kavanaugh as well as Brunetti tapping out, it remains to be seen if anyone will step in to fill the void, or if there’ll just be a fire sale on the few remaining assets that remain. In the end the only real losers will be the staff who’d been sticking it out working to pull the company out of the nose dive, only to have management fail them once again.

Hopefully some Christmas magic will happen to give the remaining team somewhere new to hang their hats.

Games programmer by day, geek culture and fandom writer by night. You'll find me writing most often about tv and movies with a healthy side dose of the goings-on around the convention and fandom scene.